Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
With the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean – (by wireless, delayed)
The fleet of 2,000 ships that carried the Allied invasion forces to Sicily was by all odds the most gigantic ever assembled in the world’s history, many, many times the size of the great Spanish Armada.
In reading of this invasion, you must remember that at least half of it was British. The planning was done together and our figures lumped together, but in the actual invasion we sailed in separate fleets, landed in separate areas.
So, when you read of 2,000 ships in this fleet, you can figure half of it or more was British. The 2,000 figure also includes convoys that were at sea en route from England and America which arrived with reinforcements a few days later. But either section of the invasion, American or British, was a gigantic achievement. It was originated, planned, organized and put into effect in the five short months since the Casablanca Conference. The bulk of our own invasion fleet came into existence since November.
The U.S. Navy had the whole job of embarking, transporting, projecting and landing American invasion troops in Sicily, then helping to fight the shore battle with their warships and afterwards keeping the tremendously vital supplies and reinforcements flowing in steadily.
Spitting into wind did it
After being with them throughout this operation I must say my respect for the Navy is great. The personnel for this great task had to be built as quickly as the fleet itself. We did not rob the Pacific of anything. We created from whole cloth. There were 1,000 officers staffing the new-type invasion ships and fewer than 20 of them were regular Navy men. The rest were all erstwhile civilians trained into sea dogs almost overnight. The bulk of the assault craft came across the ocean under their own power. They are flat-bottomed and not ideal for deep-water sailing. Their skippers were all youngsters of scant experience. Some of them arrived here with hardly any equipment at all. As one Navy man said, this heterogeneous fleet was navigated across the Atlantic “mainly by spitting into the wind.”
The American invading force was brought from Africa to Sicily in three immense fleets sailing separately. Each of the three in turn was broken down into smaller fleets. It had been utterly impossible to sail them all as one fleet. That would have been like trying to herd all the sheep in the world with one dog. The ships sailed from every port in North Africa down to the tiniest ones. It was all worked out like a railroad schedule.
One comes from America
Each of the three big fleets had a command ship carrying an admiral in charge of that fleet, and an Army general in command of the troops being transported. Each command ship had been specially fitted up for the purpose, with extra space for “war rooms,” which contained huge maps, officers at desks and scores of radio operators. It was through these command ships that the various land battles were directed in the early stages of the invasion, before communication centers could be set up ashore.
Our three fleets were not all alike. One came directly from America, stopping in Africa only long enough for the troops to stretch their legs, then right on again. The big transport fleets were much easier to get here, but once here their difficulties began. Everything had to be unloaded into the lighter craft which the big ships carried on their decks. It meant a much longer process of unloading than ours. When your assault troops are being attacked by land, and your waiting ships are catching it from the air, believe me, the speed of unloading is mighty important.
In addition to the big transports and our hundreds of oceangoing landing craft, our fleet consisted of seagoing tugs, mine sweepers, subchasers, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, minelayers, repair ships and self-propelled barges mounting big guns.
Thousands of civilians help
We had practically everything that floats. Nobody can ever know until after the war just what planning this thing entailed, just what a staggering task it all was. Huge staffs worked on it in Washington until the last minute, then moved bag and baggage over to Africa. Thousands of civilians worked day and night for months. For months, over and over, troops and ships practiced landings. A million things had to be thought of and provided. That it all could be done in five months is a modern miracle.
One high naval officer said as we talked about the invasion details on the way over:
And yet, the public will be disappointed when they learn where we landed. They expect us to invade Italy, France, Greece, Norway – and all of them at once. People just can’t realize that we must take one step at a time, and this step we are taking now took nearly half a year to prepare.
